GRANBURY, Texas — A pepperoni and mushroom pizza dangles in midair above Granbury, Texas. Eighty feet up, the blades of a delivery drone spin as it lowers a bag with a pizza box tucked inside.
The crunchy, thin-crust pie from a local Little Caesars restaurant is still warm. Drone delivery like this one, courtesy of the company Flytrex, is becoming increasingly common for food, groceries and medications. Several companies have recently announced expansions of drone delivery in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, making the metroplex a testing ground for technology that could soon transform how Americans receive goods.
Flytrex and similar companies offer consumers an exciting delivery experience that could be faster, more convenient and cost-effective — there’s no tipping the driver. On the business side, the technology promises to solve last-mile delivery challenges. However, experts say scaling up will require overcoming significant technical, regulatory and social hurdles.
What drone delivery options are available in Dallas-Fort Worth?
“DFW has been a focal location for a number of firms that are piloting or trying out various drone-related technology, both aerial and terrestrial,” said Travis Tokar, a professor at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth focused on supply chain management.
Walmart operates drone delivery through partnerships with Wing and Zipline across Dallas-Fort Worth. It builds on existing services that have completed more than 150,000 deliveries since 2021, according to the company. The retail giant expanded to five new cities in June, making it the first retailer to scale drone delivery across five states, Walmart said in a press release.
Chipotle’s “Zipotle” service launched in Rowlett, Texas, through a partnership with Zipline. It offers the full menu for delivery within a six-mile radius, according to the company. The drones hover about 300 feet in the air while lowering orders to customers’ backyards, CNBC reported.
GoTo Foods, which operates Schlotzky’s, Carvel and Cinnabon, recently began drone deliveries from mall locations in Frisco, Fort Worth and Plano, according to an article in Chron.
How does Flytrex drone delivery work?
Unbiased. Straight Facts.TM
In Texas, drones flying at 32 miles per hour can deliver pizzas in several cities around the Dallas-Fort Worth area.
In Granbury, Flytex can fly up to six delivery drones at a time. Dakota Cloud works as a remote pilot at the Flytrex distribution center, an outpost on the edge of a city park next to a movie theater where drones return to pick up the next order. He monitors deliveries and ensures all the drones fly safely.
“You get to learn skills you never knew existed,” Cloud told Straight Arrow News.
Customers in Granbury use the Flytrex app to select food from a restaurant or a limited selection of grocery items from Walmart. At Flytrex’s new territory in Little Elm, Texas, customers can also order on the DoorDash app and select a Flytrex drone.
First-time customers may have to enter their address to create a new delivery location. Some locations can be approved almost instantly; others take longer. Cloud recommends checking delivery addresses before placing an order.
If an address is not available, Flytrex has public delivery locations.
After a customer places an order, a “runner” who works for Flytrex retrieves the food in a car and brings it back to the distribution center. There, they safely fasten it to the drone and send it to the customer’s location.
The drones are autonomous and fly at around 32 miles per hour. According to an unscientific SAN analysis — sample size: one pizza — the pepperoni and mushroom arrive in satisfactory condition at these speeds. Before orders are sent up in the drones, Flytrex employees ensure food is securely fastened and light enough for the drone to handle.
The drone batteries are limited, so they can only deliver within a 2.5-mile radius of the distribution center. In Granbury, the public pickup location sits next to the distribution center, so runners typically hand-deliver orders.
Cloud said customers usually ask him about safety. He said it is not an issue because “there are so many redundant systems” built in. With eight propellers, two batteries and multiple motors, the drone’s design allows it to land safely if some components fail. In a worst-case scenario, Cloud said the drone also has a parachute attached.
What are the obstacles for expanded drone delivery?
Drone delivery allows orders to fly above traffic, which can shorten consumer wait times.
“Certain times a day it can take, you know, 20, 30 minutes just to go a few miles,” Tokar said. “If you’re in need of a product or if you want your food hot and fresh, a drone could be the best way to get it to you.”
However, Flytrex exemplifies some of the problems facing the new industry.
First, most of the partner restaurants available on the Flytrex app aren’t equipped to load orders directly onto the drone. It creates the need for runners who must still weave through traffic between the store and the distribution center.
Drone delivery companies also need to strike a delicate balance between battery size and overall weight, which affects the drones’ range.
“We cannot have really heavy batteries,” said Yanfeng Ouyang, a University of Illinois professor who studies drone logistics. “There’s definitely a range limit associated with it.”
Despite those obstacles, the industry has continued to grow, especially in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, where cities have been ahead of the curve on permitting drone delivery. With that growth, however, comes a new set of concerns.
Tokar pointed out that drones can be four or five feet wide, loud and loaded with cameras. Consumers might feel apprehensive about drones disturbing their peace and quiet or infringing on their privacy, he said.
As he put it: “How do you feel about having something with a bunch of cameras floating over your backyard?”
Increased drone activity could also create traffic jams in the sky.
“We need to figure out a way to allow multiple companies to share the airspace,” Ouyang said.
Where is the industry headed?
Ouyang predicts that within the next five years, drone delivery will become more commercially viable and much more normalized. He pointed to cities in China, where the service has already reached commercial scale.
For e-commerce companies such as Amazon or package delivery giants like UPS and FedEx, Ouyang said it makes sense to have hybrid models where trucks carry drones to neighborhoods, then deploy them for final delivery. This approach conserves battery life while allowing for increased delivery capacity.
“We let the truck just drive through the neighborhoods and then the drones just keep flying out and then come back,” Ouyang said.
Tokar said the next few years will be important for the technology to grow, but where the industry heads next depends also on “how we as a society respond.”
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Author: Brent Jabbour
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